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WASH vs. CBC: Which Stock Should Value Investors Buy Now?

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Investors with an interest in Banks - Northeast stocks have likely encountered both Washington Trust Bancorp (WASH - Free Report) and Central Bancompany (CBC - Free Report) . But which of these two stocks presents investors with the better value opportunity right now? Let's take a closer look.

There are plenty of strategies for discovering value stocks, but we have found that pairing a strong Zacks Rank with an impressive grade in the Value category of our Style Scores system produces the best returns. The proven Zacks Rank emphasizes companies with positive estimate revision trends, and our Style Scores highlight stocks with specific traits.

Washington Trust Bancorp has a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy), while Central Bancompany has a Zacks Rank of #4 (Sell) right now. Investors should feel comfortable knowing that WASH likely has seen a stronger improvement to its earnings outlook than CBC has recently. But this is only part of the picture for value investors.

Value investors also tend to look at a number of traditional, tried-and-true figures to help them find stocks that they believe are undervalued at their current share price levels.

Our Value category highlights undervalued companies by looking at a variety of key metrics, including the popular P/E ratio, as well as the P/S ratio, earnings yield, cash flow per share, and a variety of other fundamentals that have been used by value investors for years.

WASH currently has a forward P/E ratio of 12.43, while CBC has a forward P/E of 17.00. We also note that WASH has a PEG ratio of 0.91. This metric is used similarly to the famous P/E ratio, but the PEG ratio also takes into account the stock's expected earnings growth rate. CBC currently has a PEG ratio of 2.27.

Another notable valuation metric for WASH is its P/B ratio of 1.37. The P/B ratio is used to compare a stock's market value with its book value, which is defined as total assets minus total liabilities. For comparison, CBC has a P/B of 2.02.

These are just a few of the metrics contributing to WASH's Value grade of B and CBC's Value grade of D.

WASH sticks out from CBC in both our Zacks Rank and Style Scores models, so value investors will likely feel that WASH is the better option right now.

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